


Christmas After All

by reeby10



Category: NCIS
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Party, Gen, Minor Anthony DiNozzo/Timothy McGee, POV Gibbs, Secret Santa, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 15:28:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5461622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/pseuds/reeby10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The team has to work over Christmas, so Abby plans a party with a few surprises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas After All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geminiangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geminiangel/gifts).



> NCIS Secret Santa gift for geminiangel! I'm not exactly sure why I chose to write from Gibbs' POV, which I've never done before, but I think it turned out alright. I hope you like it :)
> 
> Thanks to biffelderberry for the beta!

Gibbs just couldn’t say no when Abby asked. He couldn’t say no to her most of the time anyway, but a team Christmas party was actually a pretty good idea if only to keep up the team’s spirits while they were forced to spend the holiday away from their families. His only request was that she not go too overboard and that she try not to be disappointed if the party had to be put off due to a case. Everyone else seemed carefully hopeful, but they knew how work could get in the way of plans.

At seven o’clock on Christmas Eve, the party was ready to get underway. By some miracle, they hadn’t been pulled away to a crime scene and things outside were actually looking pretty quiet. Abby and Bishop had disappeared a while ago to finish decorating the lab and Gibbs had a sneaking suspicion they had something else up their sleeves that they were trying to keep from him. As long as it wasn’t them sneaking in children or animals, he decided he’d ignore it for now.

“Everyone ready for a party?”

Almost as one, the three of them left in the bullpen turned to see Abby standing off to the side, a wide smile on her face. She was dressed in an absolutely atrociously red and green ugly Christmas sweater dress with a light up antler headband perched precariously in front of her pigtails. She’d replaced her regular platform boots with a pair that Gibbs thought were supposed to look like Santa’s boots, and they too lit up. It was quite an interesting look.

“Am I ever!” DiNozzo said, throwing the paperwork he’d been working on on his desk and jumping up. “There better be food and alcohol.”

“We are still on shift,” Gibbs said, giving his agent the stink eye. DiNozzo just shrugged apologetically, but Gibbs hadn’t really expected anything different.

“Don’t worry,” Abby replied, shaking her head. “There are nonalcoholic drinks for us and alcoholic ones for everyone else.”

“Everyone else?” McGee asked before Gibbs could. He looked horrified, unsure of what Abby meant by that, and Gibbs could definitely relate. “What did you do, Abby?”

Abby smirked, and this time both McGee and DiNozzo looked horrified. “Why don’t you come down and see?” she asked, and turned to head for the elevator.

McGee and DiNozzo looked at Gibbs and he shrugged at them, holding back a sigh. He didn’t know any more than they did, though he was starting to wish he’d kept a tighter rein on the party planning. There was no telling what they’d go downstairs and find. After a moment, the three of them headed for the elevator as well, McGee and DiNozzo talking softly to one another while Gibbs pretended not to hear what they were saying. He didn’t want to get involved in whatever they were arguing about this time, especially when he still had Abby’s surprise on his mind.

They could hear the noise before they made it through the doorway, and it was definitely far more noise than the four other team member who should be there would be able to make even with the sound of Christmas music in the background. If that wasn’t even more suspicious, Gibbs didn’t know what was.

“Surprise!” Abby shouted as they came in the door, arms thrown wide as if to show off the room.

Gibbs stopped in shock and he could see McGee and DiNozzo do the same. The room was decorated to the nines, tinsel and lights and Christmas ornaments on every surface, and there was a table in the corner fairly groaning with an overload of food and drinks. It looked beautiful, and Gibbs could tell that Abby and Bishop had gone to far more trouble for the party than he’d thought they would, especially with the lingering threat of a case ruining their plans at any moment.

The most shocking thing, though, were the people. Instead of the seven of them Gibbs had been expecting, there were at least a dozen people crowded into the lab. Abby had apparently decided that if they couldn’t spend the holiday with their families, their families would come spend it with them.

Everyone seemed in high spirits, immediately hugging and laughing and grabbing food and drinks as they mingled, and Gibbs couldn’t blame them at all. The team was like a family and they would have made it through the holiday shift just fine together, but being able to spend Christmas with the team _and_ all of their families was even better.

“I hope you don’t mind me inviting everyone,” Abby said, sidling up to him, a little unsure. He realized he hadn’t left his place in the doorway or even cracked a smile, so she probably needed some assurance. That he could definitely do.

“It’s great,” he replied, leaning over to leave a kiss on her temple. She smiled at him, kissing his cheek in turn and pulling him in for a quick hug. “Now, I heard there was food?”

“All the food you can eat,” Abby confirmed with a decisive nod. “I made sure to get everyone’s favorites. And I mean everyone’s.”

Gibbs glanced over at the table. “I don’t think even this many people can eat that much food,” he said. “Speaking of which… how many people did you invite, Abby? I thought this was a team party.”

“Just a few friends and family,” she said, eyes dancing. He could tell she was absolutely unrepentant about the party, but he hadn’t really expected her to be. He didn’t mind, really, but being gruff about that sort of thing was expected from him. “Maybe twenty or so, you know, just the basics. Not everyone’s shown up.”

“And what about the gift exchange?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s still just a team thing,” she replied, pointing over at a smaller table full of wrapped presents that everyone had delivered to her earlier in the day. “I told everyone else when they were invited that they could bring presents if they wanted, but it’s a little hard to do a _secret_ Secret Santa and I couldn’t be sure who would actually show up anyway.”

Gibbs nodded. “Alright.”

“But we probably should get that out of the way,” she said, glancing around the packed room. There were already several people who looked like they’d started the drinking early, and Gibbs could only hope his team was taking being on the clock seriously enough to abstain.

“Ok, everyone!” she said loudly, stepping more into the middle of the room. Gibbs followed a few steps behind. “Time for opening presents!”

Several people cheered, including Abby herself, and they all moved to gather around. There wasn’t room for chairs for everyone, but they made do with a few rolling chairs, an empty table, and getting really friendly with their neighbors. The team was at the center of the circle, the table of presents off to one side for easy accessibility.

“Who wants to go first?” Abby asked, looking around. “Should we start with Ellie since she’s the probie baby?”

Bishop groaned at that, but smiled as well, and Gibbs knew she didn’t really mind being called the probie or the baby of the team. It was true enough anyway and she was smart enough to know that such good natured ribbing meant she was truly accepted.

No one argued, so Abby handed Bishop a present wrapped in rather old fashioned looking paper. Gibbs knew immediately that it was from Ducky, and he was fairly certain the rest of the team could tell as well, especially by the sudden wild-eyed look Bishop got. She opened it up, though, and put on a smile when it revealed itself to be a brass lamp.

“I thought it would look nice in your living room,” Ducky offered. Even Gibbs, interior decorator that he wasn’t, could tell that it really, _really_ wouldn’t.

“Thank you, Ducky,” Bishop said with a weak smile.

The opening of gifts continued, some of them good gifts and some of them quite a bit more out of taste, but there were smiles and thanks all around. Even the other friends and family seemed quite amused by the exchange, laughing and clapping and smiling along.

Finally it came time for DiNozzo to open his gift, and from the blush on McGee’s face, Gibbs was pretty sure he was the Secret Santa. He wasn’t exactly sure why the agent was blushing over the present before it was even opened, but there it was. When DiNozzo opened the package to reveal a large black boxed set of movies and an absolutely delighted grin lit up his face, Gibbs thought he understood.

It wasn’t just a close friend gift, though he was sure everyone else would think just that, this was something more than friends. Something Gibbs had told his agents over and over again not to get involved with because it caused complications for the whole team. He also knew McGee and DiNozzo both knew that as well, so he wasn’t sure exactly why they were being so obvious right here in public, in front of him.

“You remembered, man!” DiNozzo exclaimed, stroking the gift reverently.

McGee shrugged, scratching the back of his neck self consciously. “You seemed really excited about it.”

Gibbs suddenly realized that maybe there wasn’t anything going on between the two of them. Or at least neither of them knew there was. The possibility was there, there was no denying it, but Gibbs knew all too well how oblivious the two of them could be. And they’d been teammates, friends, for years, and that complicated things.

“And last but not least, Gibbs!” Abby said, interrupting the strange tension between the two men. Gibbs was glad of it, because it was something he really didn’t want to consider at the moment.

Abby handed Gibbs the last gift on the table, a flat rectangular box wrapped in blue paper. It looked professionally wrapped, like something that’s done for courtesy at a nice store, so he had a sneaking suspicion DiNozzo was his Secret Santa. No one else would be likely to get professional wrapping.

With more than a little trepidation considering DiNozzo’s penchant for pranks, Gibbs unwrapped the package. Inside was a rustic wooden picture frame with a candid picture of the whole team inside. Gibbs couldn’t remember the picture being taken, but he could tell just by looking at it that it caught them at a calm moment, all of them smiling or laughing together. It was about as far removed from what Gibbs had expected as was possible.

Gibbs stared at the picture of his team, his family, and felt any words he might say catch in his throat. He looked up and nodded at DiNozzo, and the younger man seemed to understand what he couldn’t say.

“And I think it’s time for more drinks, everyone,” Bishop said after a moment of looking between the two of them with something like concern. He appreciated the distraction from the myriad emotions he was feeling. “Let’s go mingle!”

Everyone else did as Bishop suggested, going for more drinks and food and continuing their conversations from before the break to open presents. Gibbs just sat back, letting the presence of his team and their families wash over him. The room was soon full of noise, everyone talking and laughing together. It was comfortable and happy. It was family.

Abby had joined Carol by the food table and was busy encouraging everyone to try the strange looking cupcakes she’d made. Palmer and Breena were being regaled with one of Ducky’s stories, probably the one about the Christmas ham that all of them had heard a hundred times before over the years. Bishop and Jake had joined Sarah in a lively discussion about what sounded like the ethics of using coffee shops as hackerspaces.

And if Gibbs saw DiNozzo and McGee standing just a little too close while they talked by the far wall, well… it was Christmas after all. And he trusted his team. If anyone could make it work, it would be them.

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit welcome. If you like my fic, come chat with me [on tumblr](http://voldiebuns.tumblr.com/) or maybe [buy me a coffee](http://ko-fi.com/A7274PC).


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